Gilla the Guerrilla on 8/2/2002 at 00:03
I agree with you there ... even in my non-killing game, i never went particularly out of my way to avoid killing MJ12 Commandos or MiBs. Although i tended to be harder on the MiBs, because the Commandos just seemed to be grunts in scary suits, whereas the MiBs were actually active ranking members of Majestic 12.
Although having been downed by an MJ12 who then says "Anyone else hungry?" doesn't make me any more sympathetic to their situation. :laff:
Going back to what you say in your first post, i would like to see more humanity added to Deus Ex 2. You never came across hordes of opposition in the first game, where a violent approach was the only answer, so it'd seem to suit the game if you had to make a moral decision as well as a tactical one each time you encountered a threat.
Amorpheus on 13/2/2002 at 21:50
In situations where it was a matter of life or death I have no problems using lethal force, like when two commandos are spraying their machine guns in my direction. ;)
I don't have a problem otherwise either, but it feels better to know you saved the world without many casualities... :D
The True Taffer on 16/2/2002 at 06:42
Here's my rationale:
Before I go in guns blazing, I hide in a dark corner and do a little recon. I see which enemies are where, what tactical advantages they have (or don't have) AND I see what weapon they are carrying. I respond to their threat (If the crosshair is red, they want to kill me) with equal or lesser force.
4 exceptions:
1. Bots-since they're not technically living things, it's open season on them
2. MJ12 Commandos-they have a nasty habit of detecting me while I'm cloaked
3. Unique "Boss" Characters-especially if they have bad voice-acting (e.g, Maggie Chow)
4. Greasels/Karkians-kinda difficult to go up against one of the big fellas with a Riot Prod
Straylight on 3/3/2002 at 03:52
Even before I bought the game, when I was just playing the demo over and over, I was astonished and thrilled by the depth, realism, and immersion of a First Person Shooter game that could actually make the player feel guilty for killing "enemies."
Hells, I even felt guilty about beating them up with my baton, but if I had to put them down for their own protection, I'd rather leave a bump on their skull than a hole in it.
At that time, of course, I didn't know any of the things I discovered about the NSF in later missions. I just listened to the "NSF terrorists" talking and figured that they thought they were doing the right thing, trying to help "the people" and all, and they didn't really deserve to die for that. Besides, my brother kept reminding me that we were cops and minimal force was a better way to go.
I tried everything I could think of to come up with the absolute minimum of force. There didn't seem to be any way to identify myself as a law enforcement officer or ask them to surrender, but apparently they recognized me anyway and shot on sight. Similarly, there was no way to arrest or handcuff them, so I just settled for sneaking up behind people and whacking them on the head or zapping them. Wherever several were grouped together so that I couldn't surprise all of them, I used their own crossbows and tranquilizer darts on them and found it quite satisfying. That was still more force than I really wanted to use, but if I left any of them conscious, those trigger-happy UNATCO troops would just mow them down the first chance they got.
When I finally did get the whole game, the first time through, I knocked out every single one of the NSF terrorists on Liberty Island (except the leader) and locked them all in the little bunker out by the Comm Van, unarmed and unconscious, so somebody could go arrest them properly and throw them in a jail cell later.
I even went to the trouble of collecting all their weapons by dropping mine first. I had quite a large pile of knives to turn in to somebody. I was disappointed that the UNATCO troopers took credit for all that work. They kept telling me all about how they had cleaned up the remaining terrorists and turned in their munitions to the quartermaster, but the unconscious terrorists and their piles of weapons were exactly where I'd left them. My new co-workers wouldn't even help me carry the bodies and weapons inside, but they were willing to take credit for it. I should have figured out right then what kind of organization UNATCO really was.
Of course, it turned out that nobody in HQ was interested in arresting my room full of sleeping terrorists or taking any of the weapons. I carried some of the terrorists downstairs and put them on the hospital beds, but Jaime wasn't interested. I carried all the weapons downstairs and left them with Sam Carter, who kept telling me I was wasting my time. I should have listened.
My second time through the game, I did everything I could to minimize NSF, UNATCO, police, and civilian casualties. Stepping into one particular battle between UNATCO and the NSF in Hell's Kitchen was especially hairy, since I was playing on Realistic and the bastards kept knocking me out with tranq darts or shooting me in the face while I was trying to save them from each other.
[movie clip]Bruce Willis on top of a skyscraper, trying to scare the office workers into taking cover, and getting shot at by FBI agents for his trouble: "I'm on your side, asshole!"[/movie clip]
MJ12 was a different story, though. [spoiler]I decided to let Paul die this time through, to see how it would change the game.[/spoiler] For the rest of the game, I took down anyone and anything from MJ12 in the most unpleasant way available. (Flamethrowers aren't just for barbecueing mutants.)
[spoiler]I kept saying, "My name is J.C. Denton. You killed my brother. Prepare to die." Three LAMs blew up the guy who supposedly killed my father before I had a chance to say it.[/spoiler]
I've never seen this kind of grey area in a FPS game before, but I hope to see a lot more of it real soon. Feeling guilty about killing an "enemy" AI has changed the way I play games.
Homoludens on 4/3/2002 at 23:49
I won't be too detailed in my explanation, but I saw myself as a UNATCO agent out to right wrongs. According to my superiors the NSF were a threat, and to my own knowledge any terrorist organization is extremist if their main method of action is force (kidnapping, killing, sabotage, etc.). Therefore as an agent working for the 'good guys', it was my duty to stop them using any means necessary, including their own. But -- and a very emphatic 'but' -- this was naturally before I began to suspect, and discover, the truth. Hence, my reluctance to feel guilty about anyone I had killed or incapacitated before the fact. Why should I when I did so out of self-defense and duty? Those people made the choice to join their respective organization, so the responsibilities of what happens to them are theirs to deal with (including noticing if there's anything funny going on), just as my choice to join UNATCO and its ensuing developments were mine to deal with. Naturally, my methods of operating shifted according to my enlightment so that I became particularly tactful, being careful who to neutralize, and how to do so.
X on 6/3/2002 at 20:28
No other game can claim conversation like this..
Yeah, certainly if Paul was killed, then it could be used as a platform for motivation, as in revenge. Incidently, my mod, Death to a Nation, expands on this idea of character motivation a lot, with revenge being one of the main ideas.
Deus Ex allowed for a huge scope on the players part, allowing them to become way more involved, if they so wished.
santaClaws on 6/3/2002 at 21:20
Quote:
Originally posted by X Yeah, certainly if Paul was killed, then it could be used as a platform for motivation, as in revenge. Incidently, my mod, Death to a Nation, expands on this idea of character motivation a lot, with revenge being one of the main ideas.. I don't think you should let thoughts of revenge affect the way you play any game. I never even thought of killing MJ12's now that they have killed my brother.
* because you cannot kill exactely the person responsible for the death of your brother - they're just soldiers doing their job, after all -
* and because the whole game is not about revenge, and especially not about personal revenge, but about saving the world.
[/list=1]
-claw
Homoludens on 6/3/2002 at 21:42
As much as I would love to include the possibility of avenging Paul's death, the plot and character developments never truly allowed for it -- J.C.'s relationship with Paul wasn't established solidly enough to elicit an emotional attachment from me.
[SPOILER]This partly had to do with him being done away with so early in the game. Perhaps if the storyline had him and J.C. delving into their past (family, growing up, etc.) while going on parallel missions reaching at least halfway into the story, it may have become yet another brilliant facet of story driven gameplay, one that I would wholeheartedly welcome, one that would add even more dimension to the experience.[/SPOILER]
X on 7/3/2002 at 19:12
Certainly, and I think that JC Denton as a character was really bland, though this allowed for the player to leave their own impression on him. If the character had more motivation, more ideals and frankly more personality, then he would have seemed more natural. As it was, he was indeed merely a killing machine.
tripwood on 8/3/2002 at 07:04
my JC was definetly out for revenge and blood in my mind, and looking to set things right in the world, regardless of everything else. JC was my little avatar, and reacted to the same moralities as i do. which pretty much included stabbing ennemies in the back as much as i could, or even while they had been neutralized by non lethal means already, but yet remaining loyal to the greater good. :thumb:
